


The Amazing Aiba-chan

by ltgmars



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 14:33:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5052229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ltgmars/pseuds/ltgmars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aiba has a gift and is ready to share it with the world. His friends make sure he takes some time for himself, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Amazing Aiba-chan

**Author's Note:**

> Written during [](http://kitto-slutparty.livejournal.com/profile)[kitto_slutparty](http://kitto-slutparty.livejournal.com/) 2015, originally posted [here](http://kitto-slutparty.livejournal.com/34317.html). Thanks to [](http://elfiepike.livejournal.com/profile)[elfiepike](http://elfiepike.livejournal.com/) for being better than I deserve, always.

"I don't know. Makes it sound like you belong in a circus."

Aiba's gaze rises from the sweaty glass of mugicha on the coffee table in front of him to land sharply on the figure on the couch across the room. Nino has one of Jun's male fashion magazines flopped open against his crossed legs, and he's leafing arbitrarily from one section to the next. When Aiba makes a noise of retort, he sees Nino's thin lips sneak upward.

"I think it makes you approachable," Jun says seriously, cautious eyes on the magazine from where he's sitting next to Nino.

Aiba chirps happily. "Right?" He catches Jun's eye, and they share a smile. Jun has always been the nicer of the two. "Makes me feel so cosmopolitan."

Jun's head ticks to the left, and he quirks his lips. "Not sure about that..." And Nino snorts his amusement into the air.

Aiba puts a profoundly wounded pout on his face and crosses his indignant arms over his indignant chest. "If that's how it's going to be, I won't sign your action figures even if you beg me to."

Nino nods at the slim male model in an overpriced sweater in his lap. "That's a fate I'm willing to risk," he says, skipping another few pages ahead.

Aiba's phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out to see a message from Ohno. Have they decided on a name? He's received vegetables from his sister's home garden that he wants to share at the apartment, so they can talk about costume ideas then. How about tomorrow morning?

Aiba reaches out for a swig of mugicha, wiping the remaining condensation off his fingers onto his pant leg before taking his phone in both hands to reply. "Since we don't have any better ideas," Aiba says aloud to his phone, and he starts tapping out a response, pretending not to notice how Nino and Jun are pretending not to care.

He's going to be the Amazing Aiba-chan whether his friends like it or not.

-

The three of them go back farther than any of them talks about, but Aiba knows that it's a point of pride for all of them. If it weren't, they wouldn't still be living together some thirty or so years after they first met at the baby park, their mothers walking them like helpless puppies with less robust immune systems. Aiba had been the only one actually walking at the time -- "toddling" was truly a fitting word -- and the story goes that he had stared in rapt fascination at the other two boys, both styled like their older sisters, all snug fleece and frilly socks as they got strolled around the park. As the leading ladies of the Aiba, Ninomiya, and Matsumoto households got to know each other and discuss their lives after the addition of young sons, Aiba took it upon himself to offer the other boys a gift: fallen leaves he'd found on the ground, soggy from the early morning rain. He brought a handful to the strollers like rusted gems, just to be stopped by his mother, alternating between stern warnings that he could get the other boys sick with his dirty leaves and profuse apologies to the other mothers for her son's abhorrent lack of common sense.

Or so the story goes. Nino's mom had been the first to tell it, years later. Aiba initially took it at face value, and Nino and Jun next to him had no doubts that Aiba "would", but the longer he knew Nino, the more he suspected his knack for the art of exaggeration must be genetic.

It wasn't until his last year of high school that they discovered Aiba's powers. It was a slow process of noticing a pattern of behavior, and it came alongside their discovery of a few other things they'd all been meaning to discover about each other. When he looks back on those days as an adult, Aiba is certain that he wouldn't have figured it out on his own -- it took Jun's careful attention to detail and Nino's ability to put the pieces together to see what was going on. Jun was like a painter with a vision who sometimes got caught up in the details, and Nino was the historian who could step far enough away to see them, put the details in context and figure out what it all meant. Aiba was just the colors on the canvas.

"I thought you were just nice to be around," Jun said quietly. Moonlight filtered into Aiba's bedroom through his frail curtains, and Aiba could see the way Jun's eyebrows were furrowed in thought, better still because it was the first time Jun was in his bed and not in his usual futon that Aiba's mom had laid out for him. Jun was frustrated, Aiba could tell, the annoyance warming all three of them under his blanket, because Jun hated losing to Nino more than anyone, and he was probably feeling like he'd lost because he hadn't been the one to put it all together.

"He is," Nino replied, surprisingly earnest, but that was something else Nino was good at -- he could set aside the embarrassment he usually hid behind snide comments to tend to the needs of one of his best friends. Aiba tugged him in closer, and Nino stumbled adorably on his next words. "You're... You were the one who saw the signs. All the times Masaki got dogs to stop barking, or babies to stop crying, or diffused tension just by being in the room."

Jun sighed. "I guess so." He shrugged against Aiba's shoulders halfheartedly, and then the night fell back into stillness.

Aiba frowned before bringing his hand up to Jun's jaw and pulling him in for a kiss. It was only their third together. The second was traded between the three of them in the shower as they spent twenty minutes getting all of their curiosity and teen energy out of their systems. The first wasn't much earlier than that. And like the two kisses before it, the moment their lips touched, Aiba could feel a warm tingling along his shoulder, where his birthmark got darker the more they kissed. Jun had noticed that, too -- the way it faded after being in public spaces for long moments, like letters in the sand gradually swept away one tide at a time, and the way it came back to life when they were back at Aiba's house, the three of them exploring each other and washing the seasalt sun off their skin.

"Thanks for noticing me," Aiba whispered as their lips parted. Jun nodded his head down and didn't bring it back up, but Aiba smiled at him anyway, confident that his feelings would come through.

"So what does this make you exactly?" Nino's tone was conversational, and Aiba could feel Jun's body ease against his a bit more. "Like what do we call you besides an airhead?"

Aiba giggled. "How rude."

Jun lifted his head up, shifting close. "Maybe a balmer? Is that a word?"

"If you want to study journalism in college, you're going to have to do better than that."

A scoff. "Masaki was right. You are rude."

"Does that make me your Kryptonite?" Nino was awake again, his mind jumping from one thought to the next at a speed no one else could keep up with. "Because you're both so weak to me." Ah.

"It might work for me, but if Jun doesn't have a power then he can't have a Kryptonite, can he?"

"You're more like a chronic illness, Kazu," and Jun's comment Aiba understood right away. He and Jun were stuck with Nino for life.

-

Ohno comes as warned, armed with bags on either side of him stretched to their plastic limits with every variety of garden crop. His sister gives him a box every time, he admits, but he keeps it for himself in case he needs it for a project he's working on.

"You don't need the plastic bags, though?" Aiba asks, holding the door open and stepping aside to let Ohno in. He takes the bags wordlessly and walks them to the kitchen, accompanied by the somehow rhythmic soundtrack of Ohno wiggling his shoes off at the genkan.

"I can always get them at the convenience store," comes Ohno's response, punctuated with a final drop of his shoe, and to be sure, the sponsors for transportating today's vegetable haul are the Lawson family and the Family Mart family. Jun walks in from the living room to help put the vegetables away, and Aiba smiles at him in thanks.

"Good morning, Ohno-san," Jun says casually, but his eyes are like a predator on his unsuspecting prey. Ohno's response is sheepish at best, a tiny answering nod. Like most days, it doesn't go much farther than that.

The living room doubles as their headquarters. Aiba's taken the liberty of designing some possible outfits himself, everything from a nice suit like Bond to a classic Superman-style cape and tights. He shows Ohno the ones that have Nino's helpful additions noted on top (graffiti on the stick figures, which means he was particularly fond of them). He's not sure if the cape-and-tights is the right approach since his brand of superpower doesn't involve much action, fighting, or even movement, really, but it _is_ the outfit that would make him feel most like a superhero.

Jun has taken it upon himself to act as an assistant -- but only to the Amazing Aiba-chan. When Aiba's just Aiba Masaki, he doesn't get the coffee brought to the table where he and Ohno are working (though he does get his mug sitting next to the coffee pot because Jun can't just turn off the considerate part of himself), or the _Space Jam_ soundtrack playing on the apartment sound system as pump-up music (though the apartment's matching Air Jordans do get a special section in the shoe rack because they all agree that they spent too much on trendy shoes not to take care of them). Aiba suspects that the Amazing Aiba-chan's assistant also has a thing for his artistic director, which makes it that much easier for him to be attentive during their meetings, like a fly on the wall taking meticulous notes, but Aiba Masaki will let Jun figure that out on his own.

Nino comes home just as Aiba and Ohno have settled on the final design: a souped up version of the white-and-green design that Nino had doodled a handlebar moustache on. Nino nods in apparent approval. "All that's left is to grow that 'stache."

The final step in the process is to get fitted for the outfit. Ohno rises to his feet with the smoothness of a self-playing piano and pulls a tape measure from the pouch around his waist. Aiba stands automatically and holds his arms straight out like a baby airplane, waiting to be inspected.

Aiba's somehow reminded of the first time they met Ohno some months ago. Aiba and Jun were on a jog through the park, and Ohno was sitting on the grass, still as the early morning, letting the birds come to him. Ohno's touch as he works across Aiba's limbs is delicate and precise, unadorned, still at one with the elements around him, and Aiba admires the way his movements seem so effortless, betrayed only by the hint of a pout that shows that he's processing the information he's gathered.

When Ohno's done writing notes on the final sketch, he leans back, catching himself on his arms, and Nino brings four beers to the table, leaving Aiba's an assholish two centimeters out of reach. Aiba clicks his tongue and shuffles forward to reach it, and he watches Nino and Ohno share an amused glance. Jun sifts the papers on the table into a neat stack before settling in front of his own drink, and finally they clink their cans together in the middle to celebrate a morning of hard work with good old-fashioned drinking before noon.

"Remind me to send these designs to Sakurai-kun so that he can start working with the manufacturers," the Amazing Aiba-chan's rosy-cheeked assistant says later, his mouth working deftly around his fifth drink.

The Amazing Aiba-chan's manager grumbles from where he's slumped onto the table, his words sticky with alcohol. "Shouldn't the reminders be your job?"

The assistant takes an unrestrained whack at him that reverberates through the room. "Shut up, Kazu," and their eyes meet in a drunken glare before they crumple into each other, laughing.

Aiba turns to smile an "I can't believe we have to deal with these guys" kind of smile at Ohno, just to find that he's gone. He'd said something about going to the bathroom, maybe, but Aiba can't quite remember how long ago that was. Certainly he'd said something else after that, though; no fine adult would pretend to go to the bathroom when he's actually leaving.

-

Aiba hadn't been keen on making what he did (what he did just by existing, for that matter) into a "business". But Nino was studying business administration in university and had a lot of complex points to make about how commodifying Aiba's balming powers would guarantee sustainability and open up access to the community at large. With financial backing, they'd be able to send Aiba outside of just their modest neighborhood where everyone knew and loved him anyway, and he'd be able to bring peace on a grand scale. He could literally fly around the country and make people happy.

"Yeah," Aiba said weakly, and he hated how Nino knew that he was right but still took the time to listen to Aiba stumble through his points. "But I just don't feel good receiving money for just doing what's right, you know? For just... being in a space."

Nino patiently set his pen down on his notebook and folded his arms over his chest. "A lot of people make a living off of their natural talents," he started slowly, using enough words to fill in the blanks of his thought processes, for Aiba's sake. "It doesn't make you a bad person to want to be able to subsist on something that could potentially be a full-time thing."

Aiba frowned at Nino's textbook, long strings of character compounds about financial stability in for-profit companies frowning back at him. Nino sighed and shifted his weight, refolding his legs beneath him, and Aiba's attention was drawn to the plain grey socks on Nino's feet, threadbare around the toes compared to when he got them in middle school but still somehow holding on.

"What if we made this a not-for-profit thing? Any fees we'd charge would be just enough to pay for transportation and materials and meals, and anything else we got from goods and other marketing could go toward..." Nino shrugged, clearly at a loss because he so enjoyed keeping money to himself. "I don't know. Monkeys and kangaroos and wildlife preservation and stuff. Your powers don't work for animals but maybe our extra revenue can."

"Oh." Aiba blinked. That wasn't such a bad idea. He met Nino's eyes. "Talk me through this some more."

Nino grinned and leaned forward, and their phones chimed an 8-bit version of the _Dragonball_ theme song. A group text.

"Cha La, Jun Cha La," Nino sang quietly as he reached for his phone, and the jingle wasn't as funny as it was when they first programmed it into their new phones, but Aiba couldn't read (or listen to) a group text without it. "Oh, Jun's bringing by that senpai he was telling us about. The one who wants to do journalism about the economy. Is that even a thing?" Nino said questioningly, looking up to meet Aiba's eyes. They shook their heads together in doubt. "Anyway, let's see... I guess we're supposed to clean the apartment before they come."

Aiba swooped his eyes lazily over the apartment, willfully choosing to ignore all of the blatant signs of three busy college boys sharing one space: empty bags of chips, masses of crumpled papers, wrinkled shirts and boxers and other unnamed articles of varying quality and suspect cleanliness. "Good enough, right?"

Next to him, Nino tucked his head into his elbow and laughed.

-

Sho hasn't changed in the years that they've known him. He's professional, punctual, precise, and somehow still easy to relate to. Aiba's not sure where that comes from, but he's grateful that his publicist isn't some kind of cold robot. Still, it's with a chilling mix of fright and awe that he watches Sho navigate even his days off down to the minute, but all he knows is that Sho's a lot of things Aiba isn't, and he's glad he has someone so dependable on his side.

It had taken some years for the "business" part of the business to actually get off the ground. Sho had given them some tips to start, but he and Nino both stressed the importance of building capital, and of having a steady flow of local business before taking on the nation. He didn't have a superhero name back then -- he was still just Aiba Masaki, the neighborhood guy everyone felt good about having around, the older son at the Aiba family restaurant. It took years of polishing the practice, of making small appearances and developing performance skills so that people didn't feel like they were paying just to bring someone in to sit there. He had to become the one man in town everyone wanted to see and be friends with, the one man people looked up to and were encourged by, the Super Idol Aiba-chan, and while he had his innate ability to bring peace, the rest of what he had to offer did require some practice. With Jun and Nino at his side, he worked day after day, rising and setting like the warm, life-giving sun, until they were unequivocal professionals at what they did and Aiba could officially retire from the mapo tofu business to move on to being a bearer of balm.

Sho sits with him now in the back of their "PJ, Private Jet" (as Nino insists on calling it every time he jumps into the cockpit -- his getting a piloting license was apparently also part of the plan, though Aiba suspects it's equally as important to Nino to be able to brag about being a pilot), and they're on their way to the first official out-of-town visit by the Amazing Aiba-chan. Sho and Jun had worked hard to craft a wholesome schedule for him that includes everything from visiting a children's hospital to playing soccer with the lion at a local zoo. Sho's inside connections with the nightly news show on NTV also gives them the opportunity to have the right coverage: an exclusive interview and the beginnings of a special documentary that would increase his potential audience exponentially.

"Nino and I are close to finalizing negotiations with a toy manufacturer for that action figure you've been wanting," Sho says after he's gone over the schedule, twice.

Aiba jerks his head in attention like a dramatic chipmunk. "Hey! That's great!" He can feel the excitement radiating off his skin, and Sho grins wryly at the sudden attack on the senses.

"Try not to forget that your excitement is also contagious, yeah?" But Sho laughs despite himself, and Aiba's grateful once again that he's somehow been able to surround himself with people who understand him.

The Amazing Aiba-chan's first appearance on location goes well, with hundreds of calmed children and adults, a few dozen local animals who'll be receiving the proceeds, and only two uncomfortable wedgies from his outfit. After the _NEWS ZERO_ documentary airs, the requests come flooding in, and all Aiba has time for between appearances is short, quiet moments with each member of his team -- his publicist, his artistic director, his manager, and his assistant -- to make sure that they're getting the relaxation they need to stay happy and healthy while they all work together to make other people happy and healthy.

He doesn't have much time for himself, unfortunately, and he's sure that he's running his team ragged with his increasingly busy schedule, too. He opts to stay in the living room as much as possible, their headquarters even after all these years, so every time Nino and Jun pass through, or every time Ohno and Sho come by, they're able to get that quiet moment of respite through Aiba's presence that he's surely stealing away from them with everything else they're doing for him. He closes his eyes and breathes in deep, letting the flurry of activity in support of a best-selling superhero fade into the distance.

-

The sound was what Aiba liked best.

It would be another five years before he would really start to develop his own sense of rhythm and learn to use music as a form of bringing joy to others, but now he was on the beach, lying on the sand with his eyes closed, and all he wanted to do is hear the world around him. Nino insisted on keeping him lathered up with sunscreen, which was really his excuse to slap at Aiba's skin with hollow claps and flick at his nipples with quick whiffs of his fingers. He would lie down next to Aiba every once in a while, his breathing calculated and slow as he worked against his body's natural proclivity to nausea even just smelling the sea. Jun was out in the water somewhere, riding the tides like they were his own emotions, powerful and gentle and furious and soothing all at once. Aiba could hear every lap of the waves, every triumphant whoop lingering in his ears before they were wrapped up in the ocean once again.

He could also hear the people around them as they passed: children screaming their way down the beach, women convinced that their bodies weren't good enough, other high school boys like Aiba and his friends, out trying to find dates for the rest of the weekend. They all became markedly more mellow as they passed by, their sharp conversations rounding off for a soft moment just to continue where they left off when they got farther away.

"How much longer do we have to be here?" Nino said, much closer by, and Aiba loved the lilt of his whine, too.

"I'm done," Jun called, audibly exhilarated, his bare feet squishing into the wet sand with an extra hop in each step.

Aiba felt a shadow overhead, and he opened his eyes to see Nino and Jun peering down at him. "Time to go, then?" Nino said hopefully.

"Not yet. Want to write something in the sand?"

They wrote their initials, right at the edge of the tide, and Nino snidely remarked that he never signed up to be in a seishun drama.

"It's weird that your birthmark keeps getting lighter like that," Jun said on the way back to the train home, after they'd returned his surfboard to the rental shop. The sun was slowly closing its eyes for the night, blinking the world into a hazy orange. Aiba stopped to look curiously at Jun, who was eyeing his shoulder with obvious affection for the splotch of skin hidden beneath his favorite gorilla tee. "I love it," Jun continued quietly before he caught himself, blinking up in panic at Aiba and then at Nino, and then back at Aiba.

Aiba smiled, and he watched as the darkness slowly lifted from Jun's face and filtered into the warm dusk.

Nino shrugged. "I think it's allowed. I love him, too."

Jun blinked again, and then he spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "That's... not what I said, Kazu."

"It's what you meant, though." And Nino was so casual, so open about it. After a beat, Jun nodded and met Aiba's eyes.

"I love you. And him, too," Jun said quietly, tilting his head at Nino.

Aiba grinned. "That works out, then. I love you both." He tugged Jun forward by the collar, straight into his lips, sharp and bright like a day at the beach, and as soon as they touched, a warm tingle went through Aiba's shoulder. Aiba gasped into Jun's lips and broke the kiss, eyes wide. Jun stared back at him, just as breathless.

"Well, that noise was embarrassing," Nino said wryly, and Aiba and Jun shared a shy giggle. "Let's continue this when we get back to your house." His lopsided grin was nothing but love and excitement.

Aiba blinked his eyes shut, happy, and nodded.

-

Aiba feels the tingle before anything else, but he sighs into Nino's lips and lets himself be kissed awake. He smiles as he opens his eyes, and Nino and Jun blur into vision.

"So lazy. Do you even work?"

Aiba is about to retort back, but then he notices what they're wearing: Amazing Aiba-chan outfits, except in yellow and purple respectively, with an "N" and an "M" in the patches on the chest and arms where the "A" should be. He laughs delightedly. "Where the hell did you get those?"

"Sakurai-kun had them custom-made for the team," Jun says proudly. "You know the kids' costumes are going into production soon, but I thought it'd be nice to have these for us. Better than the cheongsam Kazu wanted to wear for you."

"Is a skin-tight bodysuit with a cape that different?" Nino asks, eyebrows raised to the top of his forehead as if it makes his argument stronger.

"Yes," Jun and Aiba answer simply, and they laugh as Nino "whatever"s them with an affectionate smirk.

"So, Masaki," Jun says, clearing his throat and resetting the mood. "We've taken the liberty of clearing your schedule for the night, so please use us as much as you need to relax and recharge."

Nino settles into a sturdy superhero stance, his fists against his hips. "Noble Nino-san and Marvelous Matsumoto-sama are at your service."

Aiba laughs again. "Should I get into my outfit, too? Is this a cosplay thing?"

"It's whatever you want it to be, baby," Nino says, wiggling his eyebrows.

Aiba grins and leaps to his feet, dashing to the dedicated closet in the bedroom where he hangs his suits after they've been drycleaned.

"Ow," he hears from the living room, knowing that Jun must have smacked Nino on the head for his encouragement.

"Now we're going to have to do some weird cosplay stuff. If it's shameful, I'm blaming it all on you."

The Amazing Aiba-chan giggles breathlessly, shimmying into his tights.


End file.
